Ah, Thanksgiving! For some of us, it’s a warm, relaxed opportunity to catch up with people we love and don’t see often enough. For others, it’s a living hell. When you mix alcohol, proximity, long-held resentments and, sometimes, people who don’t want to behave, you’ve got all the ingredients for an explosive feast of flaring Read More
key message
Public Speaking Tip 25: Use a Simple Key Message to Make Your Most Important Point
Why Does a Simple Key Message Matter? In Public Speaking Tip 19: Master the Instant Speech (It’s Easy!), you learned about a quick and easy-to-use format that makes any opinion or argument sound more polished. That format, the Instant Speech, begins and ends with a one-sentence statement called your key message. Your key message is an Read More
Public Speaking Tip 19: Master the Instant Speech (It’s Easy!)
Throughout these Public Speaking Tips, you’ll find glowing — sometimes gushing — references to Instant Speeches. The Instant Speech is an easy-to-use format that makes you sound poised and professional, even when you’re speaking off the cuff (for example, at a job interview or during a Q&A). Instant speeches spark public speaking joy for me, Read More
For Effective Public Speaking, Ask: Will This Key Message Get Me What I Want?
Just before Thanksgiving, I blogged about how you could save the day by using a Key Message to defuse family fights. The examples of Key Messages I gave in that post were: To Mom, who’s hassling your sister: “I’m just glad that we could all be together today.” To Uncle John, who loves Paul Ryan: “I’m Read More
For Great Public Speaking: Have a Key Message (About Your Audience!)
Ah, the key message! For public speakers, it’s like the holy grail: A mythic object with magical powers. When you have the right key message, you can easily: Adapt your speech for any audience Find three persuasive points to illustrate and support it Respond to questions (even tricky or negative ones) So What is This Read More